The Garden Glamour blog is the "little black dress" for gardeners. The "must read" postings will offer garden stories about gardening’s best practices including when to plant, put the garden to bed, pruning, color in the garden; garden tips; advice on what tools work best; garden design; opinions on garden trends; garden book reviews; garden lecture review snapshots; lots and lots of images, and funny, insouciant anecdotes about the humbling, glorious and glamorous world of Gardens!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

There are few if any things more elegant and distinctive than a hazelnut.

And perhaps none more mysterious.

Sure, if prompted, most of us can identify the flavor hazelnut when paired with oh, let’s say, chocolate.

Then there is the European-influenced spread, Nutella

And I’ve always put them out with mixed nuts at Thanksgiving. Nothing solo.

But how many can identify a hazelnut as a biennial with their frilly, gorgeous caramel-coat clusters that look like a fancy collar Tilda Swinton could regally pull off wearing?

Not me. Not until I was walking in Chef Keith Luce’s brand new potager kitchen garden behind his newly restored and reopened, Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport, Long Island. (www.jedediahhawkinsinn.com)

Chef explains that at the time he worked at the acclaimed Herbfarm Restaurant in Washington State, he partnered with the Holmquist owners and hazelnut growers extraordinaire to purchase the hazelnuts to use in his creative recipes.

After moving back to his home in the heart of wine country in Long Island’s North Fork, the siren song of the hazelnut must have wooed Chef too, as he not only continues to use the hazelnuts in his menu offerings, but he asked Holmquist to send him the spent shells they have left over after harvesting and shelling the hazelnuts, before they are gently roasted to use as his garden mulch.

The family story: this is the 5th generation to grow DuChilly nuts at Holmquist Orchards, the hazelnut growing and processing was all so fascinating. Especially as I just hadn’t ever thought about hazelnuts all that much.

To learn of this glamorous use of this charming little nut was a delightful discovery. I felt I had uncovered a treasure tale.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the October issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine – the one with the pretty, lacy pumpkin on the front cover. Included in the issue is a feature article titled, “A Harvest of Hazelnuts” that showcases an outstanding photo essay on the proud heritage of the Foulke family from start-up through success -- and especially the hazelnut harvest. (www.marthastewart.com)

Holmquist Orchards I later learn after research, was featured in a 2008 Martha Stewart story. You can buy the hazelnuts directly from their web site too.

The recent article details how the rains shake the nuts from the trees, harvester vacuums up the nuts and blows about debris leaving clean nuts to bobble into a bin.

The nuts ride a conveyor belt into the cracker. The bins that hold the nuts drops them one by one into the cracker for shelling.

This is the mulch: the spent shells!

The nuts go on to the roasting line and then to quality control…

Chef repurposes the DuChilly hazelnut shells from Holmquist Orchards in the Jedediah Hawkins garden with great purpose and success.

It is too-perfect compost and mulch.

Spread along the garden paths and in the beds it is beautiful to look at!

It seemed a bit fragrant, too.

And they make that lovely crunching come-hither sound when you walk on them.

What a curiously brilliant addition to the garden.

I looked up hazelnuts to learn more and found out they are grown in Mediterranean countries including Turkey (the largest producer) and Italy and here in the United States in Oregon and Washington State.

The nuts are used in confectionary to make praline. I also learned they are rich in protein and unsaturated fat and are a good source of Vitamin B.

I’ve always been fascinated with the quick-change, chameleon artist almond, and how it can sweetly romance almost anything from beauty products like cream or oil to food like cakes and candy and beans to candles and oh so many things.

Now, it seems the flirty little hazelnut just might steal the spotlight.

I learned from Martha’s feature story that hazelnuts can also be used to create not only delicious desserts, but also pizza dough, oil, and pesto.

About Me

Leeann's first
book: "The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook" is
available now. "New York City Homegrown Cookbook" to follow.

Leeann has
worked in restaurants and food catering and cooks with passion, using food ingredients
from local NYC Greenmarkets and her herb and farm-ette in the Garden State.

She writes a
Food & Drink column for Examiner.com, curating the food spectrum that
dazzles and elevates the radical New York food world.

She writes two
blogs. "Master Chefs and their Gardens" chronicles the making of the
book, "The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook," as well as
the nexus of garden art and culinary art, food events, lectures, Greenmarkets,
growers, cookbook reviews, and food stories. "Garden Glamour" is the
little black dress for gardeners, highlighting best practices, lectures, garden
book reviews, romantic and glamorous gardens and insouciant anecdotes about the
humbling world of gardening.

Leeann
contributed the chapter Public Relations and Marketing Communications to the
successful "Public Garden Management: A Complete Guide to the Planning and
Administration of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta."

Garden
Specialist and principal of Duchess Designs, LLC, Leeann designs artful,
sustainable gardens that tell stories & are endlessly beguiling--in every
season. Leeann received a Certificate in Landscape Design from The New York
Botanical Garden. She worked at NYBG and was Director of Communications,
Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Leeann is an award-winning landscape designer, earning
top honors in the first Broadway in Bloom contest. Two Duchess Designs gardens
are featured in "Cottages and Mansions of the Jersey Shore." Several
garden designs are highlighted in NJ Design magazine. Leeann has served as
judge for the Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest and the New Jersey Flower and
Garden Show. Leeann is a member of MetroHort Group, The Garden Writer's
Association, The Horticultural Society of NY, and The Garden Conservancy.
Leeann designed The Garden Pendant Collection. She's written garden book
reviews for The Two River Times and the Wall Street Journal. Leeann nurtures a
small rooftop garden at her home in Gotham, and herb, edible and display
gardens at her Garden State home.